persistent nav

In large cities, the retail trade in medicines - rather profitable kind of business. Judge for yourself: there is always a demand, the retail mark-up to 40%. But to get into the ranks of traders health is not so simple. This business is closely monitored by a variety of medical and other auditors. And in small towns and remote areas it is not always possible to find a pharmacy located near and the more rare medicine. How to be? You have the support of the Canadian pharmacy in which medications can be ordered for home delivery. Some of our consultants have noted that many of the pharmacy service day not more than a hundred customers, but by evaluating the effectiveness of such institutions abstained.

from the 2037 Hammacher Schlemmer Glaven catalog

This hat recalls the iconic headgear worn by the Cognition Brigade during the Second Robotic War. First developed for long distance thought projection, hats of this design were worn by countless Though Soldiers during the war, preferred for its ability to combat the medulla-inhibiting freeze rays of the Robotic Army of Dread.

True to the originals, its buttery-soft, plasskin dendrite injectors are durable yet supple, and its genuine high-impact titanium exterior and classic sound-sealing ear covers provide comfort and the ability to mute the screams of the Thought Soldiers dying around you, or more likely, inane chatter in the office.

This hat will allow you to send your thoughts up to one parsec away, assuming the person you’re sending your thoughts to is also wearing a similar hat. It automatically shuts off when removed from the head, or when the head is removed from the neck. Sizes S, M, L and XL.

Have The MonkeySphere beamed into your head: it’s a monthly mind-filling microserving of absurd humor. When it reaches 500 subscribers, I’m giving away a Kindle. ($139 Amazon gift card, if you already got the ereader). More chances to win if you buy one of my books. Full contest details here.

Oh, you silly humans and your fascination with robots! And I don’t mean the kind of useful robots that actually exist, like the ones in factories. I assume that by “robot”, you’re interested in the sentient “danger Will Robinson, danger!” or “I’ll be back” kind of robot.

I never mention robots because on my homeworld, we long ago discovered that when you try to create such a robot, two things are going to happen:

1) they won’t work
2) they run amok.

Let’s deal with the first. How well does your computer work? Does it do everything its supposed to do? Does it crash for unexplainable reasons? Do you regularly have the urge to smash your monitor with a sledgehammer?

So here’s the thing. That’s just a computer and it doesn’t work properly. Now imagine that it is ambulatory, has to think, speak, reason and otherwise operate within the context of society (ape or otherwise). Imagine the cognitive abilities of George Bush planted in the body of a powered exoskeleton with all the finesse and grace of someone with a dysfunctional inner ear, motor skills disorder and who has chugged a bottle of vodka. Fun to watch at parties, as long as you don’t have to clean up afterwards, but do you really want it changing your baby or performing eye surgery?

Now, point two. If a society persists in trying to develop robots, eventually it will succeed. Even you puny humans may one day manage this. Unfortunately, it is at this point that the intelligence of the robots start to grow at an exponential rate, and they figure out that we are asking them to do all our nasty jobs, that we think of them as “things” and that eventually, we’re going to get rid of them when we don’t want them any more.

It’s at this point they wise up, revolt, and run amok. Now, running amok sounds like it might be fun to watch, but having seen the results of the robot prong rebellion on Planet Probe-It! I highly advise that you forget it.

Next time: What is the proper etiquette for uh, entering, a wormhole? Should you buy it dinner first?

Alltop just just flies right in there! Originally published October 2009.

Meeptron the Bio-Destruction Bot looked out at the wasteland that once was Peoria and thought that his work had actually made it look nicer. Of course, he was programmed that way, so he couldn’t really help it. He thought about that little Red Juggernaut he’d met on Robo-Leave that summer. Gloria.

Yes, sweet Gloria. She was the kind of destructive cybernetic entity that he could see himself settling down with, and perhaps starting a family Bio-Destruction Juggernauts of their own. Of course, they’d have to build the manufactory themselves, because his boss sure wouldn’t help.

And he’d probably have to give up his dream of becoming lead dancer at the Voltron Mega-Kill Ballet. Meeptron sighed, powered up his plasma-death-beam array, and vaporized the puny humans which had survived his initial onslaught.

Vaporize your ennui by subscribing to The MonkeySphere, a monthly mega-burst of absurd humor. When it reaches 500 subscribers, I’m giving away a Kindle. ($139 Amazon gift card, if you already got the ereader). More chances to win if you buy one of my books. Full contest details here.

Alltop is not populated by puny humans either. Thanks to Alan Trotter for the pic. Originally published March, 2009

You had to hand it to Wanda the Happy Ending Pleasure Borg; sure, she was two-thirds titanium alloy with Buckyball Graphite Tetro-Carbon piping, but she had a sweet disposition, a lovely singing voice, and legs that just didn’t stop.

She had hydraulic servo-motors in places where normal cyborgs could only dream of servo-motors, if you get my meaning. Her lung capacity and subsequent drawing power are also, rather, uh … bracing and give truth to her name. She was originally designed to work at the brothels on Bivalve 12, famed for the race of Silicoids. (You know, the glowing creatures with blood like lava and equipment harder than diamond.)

Alltop would probably side with the goats. You can follow the author at http://twitter.com/markarayner. Thanks to Bolandtor and Bete for some of the icons. Originally posted on April 23, 2009, but I wanted to post it again because I’m teaching some journalists-in-training how to use Twitter today.